Me and Mine
by blossomstar16
Summary: My life has never been easy. No I never faced horrors, but loneliness is something that you never get used to.
1. Chapter 1

In this version of events, Sasuke never left, but Naruto did, and Tsunade still became the fifth Hokage.

* * *

><p>My life has never been easy.<p>

While I wasn't subjugated to abstract horrors like Kakashi, Naruto, and Sasuke, my childhood was always vaguely unhappy, lonely, and on occasion down right abusive.

My mother was the kind of civilian who believed that a woman's place was in the home, making tea, and being obedient to her husband. There was no room in my mother's ideal world for her daughter to be a shinobi, let alone surrounded by two adolescent boys and an older male teacher.

When I was younger, and my dad was still around at all, it was seen as a phase, like ballet lessons or horseback ridings, but as my mother would say, it gave me "ideas".

Ideas that women were equal to or better than men at something.

Ideas that I was capable of being more than just a housewife.

Ideas that I could be something more than a mother and a cleaner and a woman.

I could be smart. I could be respected.

I could be a ninja.

And that's why, the summer I turned fourteen, I ran away from home.

And I haven't looked back since.

* * *

><p>Everyone knows that I was the weakest link on my team. I struggled with taijutsu, and ninjutsu, and even genjutsu at some points.<p>

That first year on the genin team taught me that being smart wasn't enough to get me far, that it wasn't enough to _know_ the theories, I had to implement them.

In Physics, the calculus you use is only useful if you know _what_ you need to know. It's an all application science, and being a ninja is the same exact way.

It's what makes it hard, but when you know it, _you really know it_.

And that's how I find myself meditating in the middle of a training field five years later, as an above average chunin, and a gifted medic, and an adequate ninja.

And that's also where I find Kakashi lurking in a tree.

Oh, I know he doesn't realize I can sense his lazy blue chakra, but it's definitely him, and I want to know why he's here.

To be honest, I haven't talked with him much in a very long time, years perhaps, and definitely since Naruto came back when I was seventeen. Hmm.

As slowly as possible, I reach into my leg pouch and grabbed a kunai, and fling it as hard and as fast toward his hidden face as I can.

I hear a thunk, and open my eyes. I had caught the spine of his favorite book, and the one dark eye I can see is glaring at me.

"Now, Sakura-chan, why did you have to go and do a thing like that for, hmm?" Kakashi asks me, instantly behind me, and I still folded into a pretzel on the ground.

I stand up and dust myself off, cracking loose joints and grinning at his cranky face.

"Want to spar, sensei?" I ask, and suddenly he doesn't look so cranky anymore.

"I don't think you should call me sensei anymore, Sakura," he says. "You and I both know I was never very good of a teacher. Plus, I'd say you're too old for it."

I laugh. "Does that mean you don't want to spar?"

He smiles behind his mask. "Now, I never said that."

We launch into the fight, no holding back, just flashes of my hair, and his hair, and fists, and feet, and kunai all in a whirlwind of close-range taijutsu. I'm the first to use chakra, forming deadly invisible scalpels, but he senses them and moves away, and forming the seals for a long range attack, I quickly use the replacement jutsu, a log bursting in my stead when a fire dragon attacks.

It goes on for a while, one of us attacking from far away, the other disappearing, and then it ended, us wrestling in the mud left over from one of my water dragons, my arms locked behind me, and the weight of his body pressing hard into mine.

We're gasping, and then I'm laughing at how much fun it was to spar with him, and he chuckles a bit before he starts to get up.

That's when I notice he's hard. And suddenly I'm not laughing anymore either.

I shove him off of me, and his eye widens, and he starts, "Sakura wait, please—"

And then I'm gone.

* * *

><p>Author's note: So…new story? Hopefully it will be better than a lot of my old stuff (which I really need to take down).<p>

So yeah, tell me what you think, please?


	2. Chapter 2

I had never had a boyfriend before. In a time of war, who had time for romance? When Madara attacked, it was the destruction of the village and the subsequent cleanup I worried about, not boys.

I'm completely inexperienced, but I'm not naïve. I'm a medic, I've seen more dangly bits than a teenage girl should, but feeling it against the small of your back, warm and _insistent_ that it can freak someone out.

It's not the fact that it's Kakashi, it's not the fact that I've known him forever and that he's male and it could happen while wrestling a muddy, sweaty female into the ground. It scared me because it meant that someone _wants_ me.

And I can't handle that.

I reappeared in my flat, where the wood is still relatively new, the walls smelling of pine and paint even months later, the carpet beneath my feet one small comfort when my world was spinning dangerously fast, I grabbed a random glass and fill it with water. I almost choked when I realize it's full of hot water and the cup was a half full mug of coffee I had never finished. I spit it out, and do my dishes before I forget, and try to ignore the rising panic in my throat.

It's only four in the afternoon, the summer breeze still persistent, and the sun hanging suspended, unmoving, and I sigh, wanting the day to end.

I'm sitting on my living room floor, stretching every muscle I can think of, straining farther than I did the day before.

I move on to pushups, building up shoulder muscle with my chakra as I force my shaking arms to keep moving, and soon it's just me breathing, up, down, in, out, sweat running down my neck, my back, my face, and I collapse after losing count somewhere maybe an hour or two ago.

The sun is balanced on the horizon, slipping past it to settle into night, the wild passionate colors of twilight melting into night and stars and dark blue sky.

I'm out of vegetables when I check my fridge, so I grab a bag and make my way down the dusty road to the store.

"Sakura-chan!" I hear a familiar shout as I pass my teammates' favorite haunting place. Sasuke and Naruto poke their head's out of Ichiraku's new, bigger stall. "What'cha up to?" Naruto asks.

"Hn." Sasuke says.

I smile at them nervously. "Just picking up some things for dinner."

"You stink." Sasuke says.

I glare at him. "I was training up until ten minutes ago, excuse me for not being very fresh, my hair doesn't defy all logic like yours does."

"Speaking of hair," Sasuke said, "Yours is getting a little long, don't you think?"

I blinked, and then fingered my long pink braid. "Why?" I asked, "It's useful in battle, it becomes a weapon."

My hair was now far beyond my waist in a braid, and though it takes forever to take care of, in battle, when I braid in a long spike strip, it becomes a way to draw in enemies and trap them close to me, so I can render them defenseless, and unconscious.

Naruto was edging away slowly this whole time, knowing, somehow, that Sasuke was going to pick on me. And that I would retaliate.

The smallest drop of chakra I sent to my foot. And then I stepped on Sasuke's.

He gave me a dirty look, but he didn't say anything. I was turning to leave, waving goodbye, when Naruto shouted after me.

"Sakura-chan, Kakashi was looking for you earlier!" he yells.

I paused, and asked, "Where?"

"Oh down by the hospital…He's probably at a bar with Genma somewhere by now." He said, losing interest as he turned back to his meal.

Sasuke placed a hand on the small of Naruto's back, and I sighed and turned to leave again.

"By the way, Naruto," I call without looking. "If you guys are on a date, you should go somewhere more private than a ramen bar to be affectionate in public."

I hear some spluttering, and I laugh loudly as I hear their angry yelling fading behind me.

When I return home, my house is as dark as it is outside, and when I turn on my lamp, Kakashi is sitting on my couch, his head buried in his large scarred hands.

I sigh once more, before I turn into my kitchen. "What is it Kakashi?" I ask while I'm getting out a frying pan.

"Sakura…" his voice is quiet from the doorway. I grab a cold container of already cooked rice from my fridge and a cutting board from off of a hook on the wall.

"Sakura…." He says again, coming closer.

"Are you staying for supper, Kakashi? I have plenty." I interrupt, not wanting this conversation to take place.

"Sakura." He says, more insistent this time, and suddenly he's in my space and I don't know where to look or how to breathe, and there's that familiar panic caught in my chest like a bad cold that won't go away.

"Kakashi." I choke out when he puts his hands on my shoulders. "What—"

"I'm very sorry for what happened today." He said, looking at my face. "Sakura, I'm sorry."

"What are you talking about? I only remember you beating me at sparring this afternoon." I say shakily, not meeting his eyes, _I can't meet his eyes._

His voice turned hard now, "Don't run away from this Sakura. I know you're good at it, but I won't let you escape this." He squeezed my arms.

"I can't do this," I say, the panic now showing, my hands clenching and unclenching from fists, I'm sweaty and pale, and "Don't touch me!" I finally scream.

Surprised, he releases me, and I shove him away. I gasp, and clutch at the counter, my knees weak. This feeling, this closeness, this _phobia_. I just can't take it.

"So…So….are you staying for supper, or what?" I ask, finally looking at him. I offer a shaky smile. He rubs his masked face in his hands.

"No….No I don't think I am," he says quietly. "I…I think I need a drink."

He disappears in a poof of smoke. I slide down the side of the counter, and I let the tears slip down my face.

I never do eat dinner that night.


	3. Chapter 3

Weeks pass.

Weeks of retreating from the once casual touches of my friends and what was left of both of my families, small brushes and touches would riddle me first with disgust, and now… I think I even fear it.

I still can't look Kakashi in the face.

When I get up in the morning I feel like I'm a thousand years old. I move slowly, I'm so hungry I feel weighed down in the middle. I take a cold shower to shock myself awake, and then I eat…something. I don't remember what it was.

I'm so tired.

I curl back up in bed to listen to a thunderstorm roll in. My room is so dark, that I forget to check the clock as thunder lulls me back to sleep.

I dream. A middle age man is clutching at my arm, begging me to save him of an incurable disease, pleading with me for a life I cannot give him back. It cuts to a little boy, barely nine, with big wide eyes that pierce me with their hopefulness, and I have to tell him somehow he has stage four leukemia, and his small hand is icy cold on my skin. Then suddenly it's Kakashi, coming down the street towards me, with a look in his eye that could melt the sun, reaching towards me with his large, firm, hand, and a grim set to his mouth behind his mask.

I shock myself awake, legs flying off of the edges of my bed, my head slamming back into the headboard as I gasp, a breath caught in my throat, and I'm forced to cough.

After that it's too hard to stop the tears, and I find myself laying there until the storm passes, and I glance at my clock.

I'm almost an hour late.

* * *

><p>"I'm sorry I'm late."<p>

When I make it to shishou's office, she frowns at me, and as I settle behind the desk outside her office, I see it deepen out of the corner of my eye, and I sigh.

"What is it, shishou?" I ask.

"Sakura….are you okay?" she asks me, her eyes piercing me, and I can't meet her gaze.

"Of course, why wouldn't be?" I ask as I stand back up, and she gets out from behind her desk.

"Sakura, everyone's been noticing how tired you've been. How jumpy. Please, tell me what's wrong." She asks of me, and steps closer still.

I back up again. "Shishou, really, nothing's the matter. I'm just not sleeping very well. I think I need a new mattress."

"Stop lying." She orders. She reaches out to grab my shoulder, and I awkwardly back up towards the wall, trying to escape her grasp.

"Shishou..." I say, sounding desperate now, begging her. "Don't…"

She connects with my collarbone, and I flinch deeply, connecting with the paneled wall behind me, a thud freezing time in the cluttered office. The sunlight and peaceful scene I see from the windows mock me, as I start to sweat, and tremble, terrified.

"Don't…Don't touch me!" I whisper, choking on my own breath and too much saliva and panic. I shove her slightly, not even liking touching her back, knowing if she held on too long she'd betray me, hurt me even. Take too much.

I want to start running, and I turn when her voice freezes me better than any restraining touch ever could.

"I'm setting up an appointment for you. You need help Sakura, and I'm letting you know when it is. If you don't show up I'm not letting you be registered for active duty until you do."

I want to whirl around and exclaim at how unfair it is, when Sasuke was allowed to wallow in his self induced apathy for the longest time, but complaints will get you nowhere with a powerful woman like Shishou, and I steady my shoulder and walk out the door.

* * *

><p>I don't hear from her again until that night, when a messenger hawk brought me a slip of paper with merely a time and a date on it:<p>

"_12:45 tomorrow, Ibiki"_

I crumple it in my fist and curl back up in bed, my hands grasping my cold feet like a child sulking after being sent to bed with no dinner, only I sent myself home from work, leaving poor Shizune to handle Tsunade by herself.

I can't bring myself to feel any guilt, however, and I can't make myself be ashamed of my reaction or my actions. The thought of even Shishou's hands on my skin makes me...shudder.

It's repulsive, disgusting, allowing a person to have that much control over me.

I just can't handle it.

* * *

><p>I know my way around the interrogation headquarters. I probably know too well for someone my age, but when you're the third best medic Konoha has left to offer, you're needed a lot to heal the people being…interrogated. There is a reason the hallways has a slight downwards grade towards a big creepy drain, and the rooms all sort of…pour into it. The floors all used to be white, but now they're sort of a grayish-orange, and a deep red in some spots, after years, decades, of bloodshed to find other nations' secrets and to protect Konoha's own.<p>

Ino works down here, using her skills as one of the Yamanaka clan to help assist in any way she can, and her supervisor is Ibiki, one of the scariest men currently living.

He doesn't give off the aura of "cuddly therapist" but he does know the human mind, and if I'm too terrified to do some introspection, maybe he can help me.

But I don't think I need any help.

The painfully bright lights seem at odds with the actual interrogation rooms, but Ibiki's office is gently lit with two lamps and natural light from a window, a bookshelf sits in the corner, covered with old, worn looking books with titles like "Mind and Body: The Inter-connection" and "Jutsus for Mind-Control" and other vaguely terrifying things.

The sun is still shining, but another storm is on the distance, I can smell it through the window, hot, damp air being driven in by a surprisingly cool breeze, bringing a smell of rain into the room.

I sit on the soft, squishy chair and hesitantly lean back. I'm almost relaxed when Ibiki barges in himself, his taciturn face looking into a file. I jot when I realize it's mine, my past, my present, my personal life.

Every mission I've ever had, my relationships, my teammates, the many different women I call mother, my teachers, the man from Ichiraku.

I feel startlingly bared to him right now, and I feel the same as when someone tries to grab my hand. Stop, you're taking too much.

"I would prefer if you didn't read into me so much, Morino-san," I say. "It makes me nervous."

He looks at me for the first time, at my calm, quietly collected demeanor, and smirks.

"Your façade will be a tough one to crack," he remarks, disregarding my statement, at first. "Very well. I'll play along."

He sits behind his desk, his large, scar covered frame barely fitting underneath it.

"Let's begin, shall we?" he says.

Sorry that update was a little later after the first two. I was on a roll when I wrote them, plus Kaka-saku kind of makes my head spin with a delirious kind of happiness, but I've been busy.

Hope you like the chapter! Please review if you find any mistakes, I'll be more than happy to correct them.


	4. Chapter 4

We stare at each other for a while, neither of us moving more than small adjustments for comfort, until he grins at me again.

"What was your childhood like, Haruno-san?" he asks me suddenly.

I open my mouth for only a moment, pondering how to answer his question without giving too much of myself away, and still giving him enough that he'll be satisfied.

"My mother was a very traditional woman. My father wasn't around much. I don't remember, because I was still very small, but I believe they separated because there was another woman, but it was my father who left my mother."

"You're speaking in past tense, Haruno-san. Does that mean you're parents aren't alive anymore?" He asks, irony twisting his face into a mockery of a smile.

I smile modestly. "I ran away from home when I was fourteen, Ibiki-san. I'm sure my file told you that very well."

"Then tell me something about you I don't know, Sakura."

The use of my real name was grating. I close my eyes, shifting my head in something that could only be described as a twitch.

"Does your familiar name bother you, Sakura?" he asks me, his hands sliding together in front of his face, leaning forward on his desk. His eyes were boring into me, trying to reveal all of my secrets.

Nothing gets past Ibiki.

I merely smile, and don't say anything.

He waits a moment.

"I see we aren't going to get any farther today, Haruno-san." I relax at the formal use of my name. "We'll meet two days from now, same time."

I leave his office, the only sounds the click of my heels and the soft sound of a door closing further in the building.

* * *

><p>I meet Naruto on my way home, and he beguiles me into lunch at Ichiraku's. I still don't know how he does it, but I do enjoy ramen, even though I won't ever tell him this.<p>

The high point of my day is not telling him about my therapy. The low point is when Kakashi and Sasuke arrive, and I freeze.

Sasuke still makes me a tinge uncomfortable. It's getting harder to ignore.

I was still a child when I loved him, and even now, when I think of Sasuke and Naruto…being together (because they totally _are_ even if they won't admit it) I still think we're too young; they're too young to get involved in such a physical way. Their connection, their passion is all very physical.

My love for Sasuke wasn't.

But I guess that's my fault.

I now feel, when I'm around him, as if I move the wrong way he'll think I'm still in love with him. That isn't the case, but I feel as if one signal that was meant to be friendly will be taken to mean I haven't moved on.

And I have, but Kakashi…

Kakashi.

He's so brave, and smart, and kind. He truly cares about me, about all of us, and as much as I want to, I can't even _try_. Things about him that once sent me into a tizzy—his massive hands, his lean build, his lone smoldering eye—they now fill me with a coldness, and a knowledge that those things could be used to make me give away too much of myself.

I know that isn't normal. But I can handle this on my own, and I don't need Ibiki, or Tsunade's meddling help in any way.

I cover my discomfort by pretending to choke, and then actually choking, one stringy noodle bringing my level of social embarrassment skyrocketing through the roof, and my cheeks burn as Naruto pounds on my back. I cough and splutter for a moment, and as I regain my composure, Kakashi and I lock eyes.

There's a tense, awkward moment of silence. Naruto is quiet a moment as he takes in our exchange. Sasuke is the one who breaks the silence, surprisingly.

He clears his throat, "Naruto, let's go."

Naruto stopped eating his ramen. He dropped his chopsticks mid-slurp, wiped his mouth on the back of his sleeve, and left with Sasuke. I sigh.

Kakashi looked solidly at a point somewhere over my head, and said woodenly, "Goodnight, Sakura." He then disappeared into the shadows.

I had to pay Naruto's bill.

I couldn't sleep that night. Not that I normal sleep that much anyway, it's always the hospital that keeps me awake one way or another, whether dreams or actual emergencies.

* * *

><p>It's taking over my life, some monstrous dominating force that I have no control over, that can't be contained or subdued or tamed.<p>

Shizune, Tsunade and I are the only medics capable of healing large groups of people in time to save all their lives, and all other chakra-trained medics don't have the reserves to heal more than a shallow wound or to stop bleeding. We're also the only three so well involved with poisons and antidotes.

I find it funny that Shizune specializes in poisons, and I specialize in antidotes.

When I do sleep it's a mindless whirl of nightmares, and I wake feverish and panicked for the nth time in a row.

Maybe I do need some help.

* * *

><p>Morning comes too early, irritatingly pleasant, cool, and sunny. It's going to be humid and hot as soon as the sun clears the horizon, so I dress comfortably and make myself breakfast, reveling in the solitude of my quiet apartment.<p>

That quiet is broken by the small puff and explosion of smoke that occurs when an Anbu appears in my kitchen and _requests_ my presence at the hospital for some emergency. I am cold and calm in my anger, but I do not show it.

It's barely seven in the morning. Already I have to start giving.

* * *

><p>I give at the hospital: I give my time, my energy, my smiles, my touches, my chakra, my ambition.<p>

What I wonder is, when will it ever give me something back? Sometimes I can't remember why I became a medic when all it is are faces, and names, and blood, and sometimes death.

Often death.

There are days when I can't get the blood out from under my fingernails, and times when I pass out during a surgery because even my now massive chakra reserves are depleted. There are other days when patients force me to spend time with them, to be reassuring and a rock when their life or a loved one's hangs in the balance. There are still more days, when nurses and medics and students and interns all ask me every minute of everyday things they should know, things that should've been taught, things that—

Some days I can't do this. But every day I have to.

* * *

><p>I appear in a swirl of smoke in the emergency room, the hallway cluttered with gurneys and moaning Anbu and a flurry of white clad medics, not a wisp of hair showing through. I take it in for a moment, and read intently the report the Anbu handed me before he too disappeared from my apartment.<p>

"Ambush, eh?" I mutter to myself.

"Yamanaka-san!" I holler, a blue-eyed blond cousin of Ino's appearing before me. "Take your medics and handle all flesh wounds and any minor breaks. If there's anything bad, get me or work together to stabilize until I can get there."

He nods and starts shouting names, hands already glowing green with chakra. I turn to the dark haired Hyuuga beside me.

Hinata had been very helpful in keeping my papers organized and even had majorly impressive stores of chakra, and was very talented in putting shattered bones back together, a time-consuming and painstaking process. She beat my time for a shattered femur, and like Yamanaka-san, had a group of nurses, interns, and residents under her supervision.

"Hinata, could you tell me if any of them are poisoned?" I ask her quietly, the chaos in the hall and surrounding rooms minimizing into the focused glow of healing chakra.

"Just a few, they're all in 302." She replies, summoning her own chakra to her hands as she heads for the nearest unattended.

I nod, mostly to myself, and head to the room. The first two beds are people I don't know, all a little older than me, and obviously more discreet if the Anbu armor is anything to go by, but then I see Genma in the third bed, and Kakashi in the last.

My world freezes, time slowing as my pulse starts to race. My chakra signature spikes, and I get to work.

There are things even I can ignore to save lives.


End file.
